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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Chine logs... nightmare!

It's always good when you can learn from the trials or mistakes of others. Hopefully, someone can learn something from me today.

Never having the need to bend wood before, I didn't know the best way to go about it. I first tried to see just how much the chine logs would bend without steaming. I quickly found that steaming was a must. As usual, I went to the internet. In every video demonstrating how to bend wood, the pieces were tiny compared to my chine logs.

Wanting to use the cheapest method for steaming, I used the dryer vent, camp stove method that I saw on one of the videos... it did not get hot enough. It would probably work on smaller diameter wood, but not for chine logs. They bent great for about 30 seconds, and then cooled off and stiffened up. I ended up ripping the chine logs in two and laminating them in place.

I've been told that installing the chine logs is the hardest part of the build. Man, I hope so.

Things I learned this week:

Wood breaks easily.

Steam that same wood and it will bend without breaking.

Epoxy softens and loses it's holding power under stress, when steamed.